Three years ago, Kathy Curtis envisioned bringing international students and American students at UB together to share each other's unique lives, and to break the cultural barriers between them, creating a uniform, yet diverse campus.
Today, what has become known as Eli's Chat Room, is still a growing program and is especially popular among the international students.
"Eli" is short for the English Language Institute, a UB program designed to help international students with the English language, as well as to pick up on the conversational slang used by American students. Native English speakers, or tutors, are paired with up to two international students for an hour of unconventional conversation.
"They come only with the desire to meet a native speaker of English and practice the language," said Curtis, a lecturer in the English language institute department.
The conversations have had much farther-reaching effects than practicing the English language. The chat rooms have served as a sort of forum, allowing both American and international students to see first-hand that despite their drastically different native backgrounds, they are very much the same, sharing similar hopes, dreams and even insecurities.
Each session, a tutor is paired with two new international students so that there is always plenty to talk about. Tutors and international students sign up for conversation times on a weekly basis.
Curtis said the students talk about everything and anything.
"Everything, life in Buffalo, favorite TV programs, how to meet people," she said.
On a Tuesday afternoon, Vanessa Dsouza and Zhiyuan "Plato" Li jumped right into animated conversation, as if they have been friends for years. They only met moments before, where they were introduced by Curtis in the waiting area on the first floor of Baldy Hall, the Chat Room's meeting place. There is only an hour, and they wander up to the second floor of Baldy, and take a seat at a table, filling each other in on their basic information.
Dsouza, an Eli's chat room tutor, is an international student from Kuwait who grew up speaking English and Hindi. A junior finance major, she has been in the United States for three years.
Plato, an international student from China, has been in the United States for less than a month. He is a graduate student majoring in economics and gave himself the English name, Plato, after the famous philosopher, although his friends sometimes call him Potato, he admits.
In less than an hour, these two students from entirely different walks of life discover that they have much in common, while discussing cultural differences in America, China and Kuwait.
The discussion jumps from topic to topic. Dsouza and Plato discuss American food; Plato hates it, especially pizza.
"It's awful," he said. "I think if they made that food in China they would go bankrupt."
Plato pauses, thinking of the words to describe what he doesn't like about pizza, writing a new word, "greasy," in his notebook with the Chinese translation.
Plato tells Dsouza he doesn't like American Chinese food either, and that the American diet contains too many desserts and sweets. Plato prefers dumplings, a staple food in his country, containing meat and vegetables.
A friend of Dsouza's walked by, inviting her to a party, spurring a dialogue on American and Chinese parties.
"What do you do at American parties?" Plato asked curiously.
"What do you do at Chinese parties?" Dsouza replied.
It was decided that at both, students hang out, though American parties are centered much more on wine and alcohol. While on the topic of alcohol, they talked about international alcoholic drinks. In China, Plato said Meejo, a sweet tasting rice based beverage, is a popular alcoholic alternative.
When there were no American words to describe Plato's thoughts, he whipped out a pocket size translator to help him with certain phrases.
Dsouza said she became a tutor after hearing about the program from her sister. Knowing the difficulties of being an international student first hand, she signed up for the class to help other international students with the transition.
"Being an international, its really hard," she said.
Dsouza, in a conversation with two female Korean students, advised them on the weather in the upcoming winter months, and on dealing with snow, which was something the international students have never experienced.
"It was really cool to just give them pointers," Dsouza said.
Plato also said he enjoys the weekly chats, which gives him the opportunity to meet new students.
"I like it, but time is limited," he said. "It helps."
According to Kathy Curtis, there are always more international students available than there are tutors, limiting the amount of time international students have to practice the language every week. Each semester there is a team of 15 to 20 tutors, and over 100 international students seeking conversation time.
Tutors can earn two credits for participating, as long as they put in 30 hours within the semester-30 conversations-and submit a five-page paper at the end. Some of the tutors are volunteers.
The Chat Room runs for a 10-week period each semester. Tutors and international students are introduced, and then free to chat wherever they please.
"Friendships are formed," Curtis said. "There are some tutors who will invite their international students to their homes."
Tutors and international students will have dinner together, go shopping or go to local concerts together as well.
Although tutors receive credit from the experience and international students get the chance to practice the language, both take away much more from the chats.
"I think lately the chat room students have walked away with just as much as the international students," Curtis said. "I think they learn some things about themselves."
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
